Stubble
by Noniechan
Summary: [One-Shot] Shikamaru has quite the troublesome day. Who knew shaving was so important? A Gift-Fic for Anjo. Yaoi. ShikaNaru.


Does anyone else have a retarded stalker-friend who calls them at 2:30am in the morning only to hang up and then call again? 

Sorry this is :checks clock: 47 minutes late. My bad.

This story is dedicated to **Anjo-san**! I'm such a fan of her work and it's great when an author who's work I love likes mine as well!

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_**Stubble**_

The blast of the alarm clock was deafening in the quiet morning, screaming shrilly at the bed's occupants to wake up. A few moments of no response before a whiny moan erupted from under the covers and a pillow went sailing across the room to knock the clock to the floor, the shrewd sound still echoing in the room.

". . . .Dammit." Came the sour voice from beneath the blanket. An arm reached out and grabbed the fallen alarm clock, effectively silencing it with the click of a button.

"Mmmm." A happy sigh and shifting was the only response.

"Why do you always do that?" Shikamaru grumbled, begrudgingly sitting up slowly and tossing the covers aside. He scratched his head before glaring at his sleeping companion.

"Because." Naruto stated sleepily, pulling the blankets back around him. Shikamaru pulled them off of him again.

"That thing is evil! It hates me!" The blond tried to pull the covers back. Shikamaru grunted and threw them on the floor.

"It's not evil. You're just an idiot." Shikamaru sighed before climbing to his feet and heading towards the bathroom. He gave Naruto a warning look before leaving the room.

"You better not go back to sleep."

"I won't!" Naruto yelled, looking longingly at the cooling blankets on the ground before hopping to his feet and heading towards the closet. Grabbing his customary shirt and pants, he put them on quickly, sending his dirty night shirt sailing through the air.

"You're so troublesome." Shikamaru grumbled, pulling Naruto's shirt from his head and throwing it into the laundry basket. The blond smiled brightly, pulling his flak vest on and wrapping the bandages around his calves. He grabbed his headband and smiled brightly at Shikamaru.

"Well, I'm off!" Naruto said happily, leaning forward to kiss Shikamaru.

"Hey, did you forget something?" Naruto ran his fingers over Shikamaru's stubbly chin, the taller nin batting his hands away.

"There's not enough time." Shikamaru pulled his shirt over his head and shrugged his flak vest on. Naruto tilted his head to the side and furrowed his eyebrows, 'Hmm'-ing.

"You know," He started, leaning forward again and rubbing his cheek against Shikamaru's, "I kinda like it."

"How bothersome." Shikamaru muttered, turning away to hide the small blush on his cheeks. He grabbed his hitai leaf band and tied it around his arm. "I'm heading out."

He turned back to see Naruto still looking at him, thumb stroking his chin as he contemplated something. Shikamaru rolled his eyes, two arms coming up to wrap around his stomach.

"Have a great day, 'Maru-chan!" Naruto smiled brightly, lips lingering a little longer against Shikamaru's cheek than necessary before disappearing in a poof of smoke. Shikamaru shook his head slowly, a small smile blossoming over his face.

"What a troublesome guy."

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Shikamaru headed out of his house, hands buried deep in his pockets as he made his way towards the Academy. On days when he had no missions, Shikamaru usually helped man the mission desk, or substituted the occasional class. Today he was doing the latter, and Shikamaru scoffed at the idea of spending an entire day with Iruka-sensei's class. 

"Why couldn't I have been assigned the A-class mission?" He asked no one in general, staring up at the clouds as he walked. He shifted the folders under his arm, already feeling the strain a room full of children was going to have on him.

He stopped in front of the large building, taking a minute to lean back and appreciate the cool morning breeze, the warm morning sun, the blue sky full of white clouds that promised comfortable weather. Sighing irritably, Shikamaru made his way towards the entrance.

"Children are so bothersome." Shikamaru scratched at his stubbly chin, suddenly wishing he'd taken the extra five minutes to shave. The hair was going to give him trouble today, that was for sure. And man, did Shikamaru ever hate trouble.

The problem children were always the easiest for Shikamaru to deal with-having a hyperactive boyfriend with the mentality of a seven-year-old with severe attention deficit disorder helped things. Send them to do chores, make them recite the 100 rules of a shinobi, assign them essays on Konoha's history and all the previous Hokage were the usual methods he employed when dealing with people like Konohamaru, but sometimes it wasn't enough.

It appeared today was one of those days.

Standing in the hallway outside of his classroom, Shikamaru could hear Konohamaru's loud voice, plotting some sort of plan to deal with their substitute teacher. Of course, most of the kids were going along with the Hokage's grandson. They wouldn't dare try anything if Iruka-sensei was actually present.

"Okay, so when he comes in, everybody get ready to throw their-"

"Oi." Shikamaru greeted, irritation lacing his voice as he stepped through the door, a part of himself grinning as every child froze, eyes wide.

"Take your seats," Shikamaru said grumpily, rubbing his jaw slowly as he made his way to Iruka-sensei's desk, "And Konohamaru?"

"Y-yes?" He answered, putting his hand behind his back quickly in hopes that Shikamaru hadn't seen the water balloon.

"Don't even think about it."

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Naruto stretched slowly, working out the kinks in his shoulders from having to slouch over a desk all day-payment for getting into a screaming match with Tsunade-baachan in the middle of a meeting with top-ranking ANBU members. He scoffed, remembering the fight and how it had been more of her fault than his. 

So she couldn't take jokes about her age. Big deal! It wasn't his fault she was old and angry. Well, it was his fault that he told her that, then went on to tell her just why she hadn't gotten with a man in a while and just what exactly did Shizune do besides be her 'apprentice'? Tsunade just didn't know what was funny anymore.

Naruto rubbed at his sore lower back and wondered how Iruka-sensei could still do this.

"Have you seen him?" Came the idle chit-chat of an excited co-worker a few feet away, engrossed in gossip with a fellow female.

"I know! I think it totally fits him." Was the respond, and then the obligatory giggle that accompanied such talk.

"He looks so handsome now! I mean, he was cute before but now-!"

"Totally manly and rugged."

Naruto's ears perked up and he turned his head ever-so-slightly so he could hear more. Sure he was in a deep, satisfying relationship with Shikamaru, but even Naruto didn't mind appreciating a nice piece of ass when there was one available.

And considering his line of work, there really weren't too many.

"If only he weren't already involved."

"I know! It's such a bummer." Naruto felt that the conversation was coming to an end, and while he was slightly disappointed that he still didn't know who this gorgeous piece of eye-candy was, he was set on returning to his work.

"So Naruto," He looked up quickly, wondering if Tsunade was back to deliver more punishment, "what did you do?"

"Yeah! What made things change?"

"Eh?" He asked, confused with the sudden questioning. He scratched at the back of his head.

"With Shikamaru-kun!"

Huh? Kun? Since when did people call Shikamaru anything other than 'that lazy-ass ninja'?

"What about him?"

"Well, we wanna know what's with the new look?" One of the girls exclaimed, her black hair falling around her face as she leaned forward quickly, her friend following.

"New look. . . .?" Naruto was so stumped.

"Yeah! He looked so. . . .manly! Rugged! So-"

"My type!" Another giggle.

"Is he copying Asuma-san?" Another girl joined the conversation, looking quite interested.

"What do you all mean?" Naruto asked, frustrated beyond belief. The girls around him appeared to be just as upset.

"About his beard!"

"Beard. . . .?"

"Geeze, Naruto, for being his boyfriend you sure are slow!" Naruto flipped the girl off, scoffing at their reactions before thinking. Beard? What beard? If he remembered clearly, Shikamaru shaved every mor-

Oooh. That.

"He does look pretty good." Naruto mumbled, remembering his dishelved lover from earlier. Yes, he had to admit, Shikamaru did look really sexy with a stubbly, five o'clock shadow.

"Doesn't he?"

"He looks so hot."

"I know!"

Naruto spent the next few hours gossiping with the female ninjas about how attractive Shikamaru had become with the appearance of facial hair.

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Lunchtime at the Academy was. . . .different. 

His desk was suddenly surrounded by a squealing, squirming, coo-ing group of genin girls who decided they'd spend their forty-five minutes watching him eat his bento box. He brought a piece of conger eel to his mouth and chewed slowly, annoyed by the children.

"What a. . . .man." A genin female with short brown hair and smooth, pale skin sighed dreamily, the other genin girls agreeing. Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. Just how old was this child? Nine? Ten? And she was already acting like that?

"So dreamy." Another child said, an Shikamaru almost choked on his food.

He was suddenly reminded why he liked guys.

"You look so cool." A third genin said, Shikamaru didn't remember these kid's names, and then she sighed heavily. The other genins nodded.

"You're all so troublesome." Shikamaru grumbled, finishing off his lunch and leaning back to rest his feet on Iruka-sensei's desk. What the older ninja didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

"He's such a shinobi!" A cute little boy with big glasses and freckles exclaimed, eyes shining with admiration.

"So adultish with his beard." The genin with brown hair said, and everyone nodded. Shikamaru felt his eye twitching. What was with these brats?

"Oi, lunch is over! Get back to your katas." Shikamaru ground out, feeling grumpy with all the unwanted attention. The children groaned unhappily but got back to work.

"S-Sensei?" A knock on the door and Shikamaru looked up grouchily, frowning at the chuunin standing uncomfortably in the doorway.

"What."

"Oh, ah. . . .H-Hokage-sama wanted me to give these to you." The short man held out a stack of folders, his cheeks turning pink as Shikamaru grumpily took the file from him and grunted. He flipped through them, frowning.

"Goddamn, she's always giving me extra work." Shikamaru sent the folders a dirty look before glancing back up at the chuunin.

". . . ."

"Uh. . . .ah," The man began to stutter and blush. Shikamaru felt a headache coming on, "You l-look very nice today, N-Nara-san." The man exclaimed, then turned on his heels and fled from the room. Shikamaru tossed the folders onto the desk and rubbed his temples.

"How troublesome."

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Shikamaru let the students out earlier than usual, but didn't he always when Iruka-sensei wasn't there? Afternoon classed were bothersome for the ANBU-level shinobi. Besides, having half the class stare at him and the other half tell him just how rugged and manly he looked was quite disturbing. 

He suddenly understood how Uchiha Sasuke felt all through school.

Well, Shikamaru guessed things were a little different, considering that two-thirds of Sasuke's admirers were twice, if not three times his age. It was pretty creepy having someone half your size stare at you that way. Shikamaru scratched at his chin irritably, determined to shave as soon as he got home.

Okay, so maybe that would be a little troublesome. Maybe he'd take a detour off to do some cloud-gazing. Tsunade-sama had kept him busy lately and he'd been neglecting his spot of grass. Plus, spending an entire day with weird little kids made him hesitant to go home and see Naruto right away.

With a catchy tune playing in his head, Shikamaru headed off towards the meadows.

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It was close to seven o'clock, well after the sun had set, when Shikamaru returned home, his headache from earlier long gone with a afternoon of cloud-watching. His spirits lifted much higher, he climbed the steps to his apartment, opening the door and slipping his sandals off. Almost immediately he was assaulted by a blond mass of energy. 

"Eh!"

"Where were you?" Naruto cried desperately, pushing his head into Shikamaru's chest, voice muffled by the flak vest.

"I was out."

"But I was waiting for you for so long!" Naruto pressed his body closer to Shikamaru's, gripping the back of his clothes tightly. Shikamaru tried to shrug him off.

"Don't make things troublesome, Naruto." He grumbled, awkwardly patting the blond's back in a soothing manner. "I was just cloud watching. What's wrong?"

Shikamaru shifted, uncomfortable with comforting people. But it seemed Naruto was really upset, and Shikamaru hated to see his boyfriend in a foul mood.

"I just. . . .missed you." The shorter shinobi whispered quietly, moving slowly against Shikamaru. The pony-tailed man's eyes widened slightly. He almost choked on his words.

"Y-you're aroused-?"

"You were gone for so long!" Naruto cried, pulling his face back to look Shikamaru in the eye. "And I spent the last seven hours talking about how hot you looked with your new beard!"

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, quite confused. Naruto pushed his cheek against Shikamaru's stubbly one, purring.

"All the girls said you looked manly." Shikamaru rolled his eyes.

"And so did some of the guys."

"Really."

"Uh-huh, and it was all I could do to keep from kicking all of their asses for looking at you." Naruto swiped a pink tongue over a scratchy cheek. Shikamaru couldn't help but smile.

"You're so troublesome."

"Sure, okay, I'm troublesome, bothersome, everything that irritates you, but can we please have sex now?" Naruto pouted, batting big blue eyes at his boyfriend. Shikamaru couldn't help but sigh, holding back the grin as Naruto cheered happily and dragged him to the bedroom.

Shikamaru figured he could always shave it off in the morning.

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Ah. . . .I hope this wasn't too bad, Anjo-san! I tried, I really did! 

Naruto- Yeah right. You liar. Plus, you make me sound like sex freak.

You mean you're not?

Naruto- :grumble:


End file.
